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Page 75
to some purpose. He has a kind heart. Moreover, he is in the same case himself. You I trust."
"I? But I have no household. I cannot train him up to fit his station."
"What is his station? The bastard of a bastardpoor boy. Oh, I have something for him, and his grandfather left him something. He will not be penniless. It would do no good to move him from one great household to another. He must be close, and he must be used gently. Ian, he will die, mayhap by his own hand, if something is not soon done for him. Do not fear, I will not blame you if you cannot save him. I am to blame. Only I."
Thus Geoffrey had come into Ian's care. He had more toughness, Ian discovered, than his anxious father believed. Ian did not think, after coming to know Geoffrey, that he would ever have succumbed to the cruelty practiced upon him. He had blossomed very rapidly under Ian's and Owain's kindness, putting on flesh, developing a ready tongue, and even getting into serious enough mischief once to merit a whipping. This Ian had administered and Geoffrey had withstood without flinching, apparently indifferent, until Ian caught the boy roughly into his arms to growl, "You little fool! You could have been hurt or killed!" Then came tears and remorse and promises of amendment. The boy had good spirit. He could be led by love but not cowed by pain.
It was therefore a worrisome thing to see Geoffrey suddenly reduced to the condition he had been in when he had first been removed from Isabella's household. There had been nothing Ian could discover to account for it. He could not believe that anyone in Roselynde Keep would have insulted his squire and, anyway, Owain would have put that to rights or have reported it. Ian could only believe that Geoffrey was sickand that was best left to Alinor. He would bid Geoffrey remain in the keep today, and Alinor could put him to

 
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